


Triple Eight

by klairevoyance



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 13:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15365748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klairevoyance/pseuds/klairevoyance
Summary: It's hard playing games with someone who never loses.A quick read.





	Triple Eight

Seto likes when Atem works the night shift with him.

Not because he particularly cares for Atem - in fact, Seto actually finds the man rather vexing, with his overtly friendly demeanor and bouncy steps. No, he likes when Atem works the night shift with him because, on the rare occasion that the ED was devoid of the dead and dying, they would sit together in the tiny break room and play cards.

They didn’t have time for anything complicated, opting instead for Crazy 8’s or rat-screw. Short enough that Seto could keep his rounding schedule tight, the way he liked it. He’d come to associate the shuffling of the frayed break room deck with escaping the confines of the hospital, if just for a few moments.

Atem is a good cards partner. His play style is quick, but not hasty, often content to sit in complete silence as he ponders his next move. Really, there was only one problem with their set up: Atem never lost. Never. Try as Seto might (and he did try) he always found himself just one card short of the winning combination, one single step behind Atem. Even games of total chance never seemed to tilt in his favor.

It was infuriating. Kaiba Seto, top of his graduating class, head attendant of the ED, did _not_ appreciate being bested by a fresh-out-of-medical-school resident, so new to the horrors of emergency medicine that he had yet to lose the glimmer in his eyes. Nonsensical.

Seto always shuffles the deck, always deals the cards. He always watches with narrowed eyes as Atem plays, wishing desperately to catch him slipping an Ace from his scrubs pocket. It never happens.

~△~

Some nights, Seto settles for trouncing Jounouchi instead. Playing with isn’t wasn’t nearly as fun - he was sloppy and unpredictable, but not it a way that benefitted him.

“Whatever,” the nurse would wave him off after a single round. “You can beat me all ya want, it won’t help ya beat Atem.”

He was right, of course. Beating Jounouchi was but a temporary bandaid placed over the gushing wound sliced into his ego by Atem. It wouldn’t hold. It needed stitches. Seto would know.

~△~

Seto doesn’t sleep the day before he turns twenty-nine. Washed blue by the light of his computer, he researches strategy, probability, card theory. He scribbles notes onto a scrap of paper and tries not to feel silly. When the light fades from around the edges of his blackout curtains, he changes into his crispest scrubs.

On the night before his twenty-ninth birthday, the break room cards go missing. Seto tries not to look too glum while crumpling his notes and hopes into the trash can.

~△~

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. KAIBA” reads the handmade sign taped to the door shutting Seto away from the world. Usually, his office sits empty.

“No cards today?” Atem asks with a knock, before learning of their fate. Seto wishes ‘being annoying’ was enough of a grievance to justify firing someone.

He hides in his office - a dragon in it’s cave. He doesn’t notice when Atem hands his clipboard off to Jounouchi and slips through the front doors.

Atem isn't gone long, and when he returns he bears a grin and a plastic-wrapped deck of playing cards.

“They’re not fancy,” he qualifies. But Seto doesn’t care.

~△~

It was a good thing Death’s door had no visitors the night before Kaiba Seto’s twenty-ninth birthday. He rounds at lightning speed, his gait long and his visits short. His mind is far away from the hospital.

~△~

The clock reads 11:55pm - five minutes left to make the last act of his twenty-eighth year a triumphant one. The cards are unwrapped, shuffled, dealt. The game is Crazy 8’s, and Seto has the perfect opening hand.

The first card is flipped, the queen of diamonds. Atem plays the king of diamonds, Seto plays the king of hearts.

Atem hesitates, draws.

“Do anything fun for your birthday, Dr. Kaiba?”

“This.” And it was the truth. As Seto’s hand dwindles, Atem’s grows. He was winning, and it was _fun_.

Atem is a good sport. He doesn’t bring up the fact that he’s losing. But they both know.

Jounouchi pops into the break room to fetch Atem.

“After you win, f’course,” he winks, and Seto’s scowl deepens. He plays the five of clubs. It leaves one card in his shaking hand: the ace of hearts.

Atem squints. His eyes flash from the pile between them, to the four cards in his hand, to Seto’s scrunched face.

He lays down the five of hearts.

“Ha!” Seto’s exclamation makes even the slumbering nurse in the back corner jolt. He slams down the ace of hearts, scattering the cards onto the tile beneath them.

The last stitch is placed. The wound is no more. 

Atem folds his hand with a smile.

“Congratulations, Dr. Kaiba,” his words are genuine. “And happy birthday.”

Seto is as tall as a mountain. So tall, in fact, that there was no way he would have noticed the hand Atem abandoned.

Three eights.

~△~

When the shift changes at 6:00am, Atem and Jounouchi drag Seto to the diner across the street. They order omelettes and beers, and Jounouchi pays the chef five dollars to write a rude word in whipped cream on a pancake.

Seto retells the age-old story of the one time he beat Atem at cards, and Jounouchi balks.

Later, Atem would tell him how he threw the match, and Jounouchi would call him soft. But for now, in the stolen peace of the early morning, he’s content to let Seto wear his crown.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this has been done before.


End file.
